The Americas

Buenos Aires's mayor

Déjà vu all over again

ON THE thin roster of candidates hoping to run against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in her bid for re-election as Argentina's president this year, one of the most promising was Mauricio Macri. The son of a wealthy businessman and the former president of Boca Juniors, the country's most popular football club, Mr Macri was reasonably well-known nationwide even before he was elected mayor of Buenos Aires in 2007. The city's economy has prospered during his time in office, and he was able to establish a new municipal police force, ending the city's dependence on federal officers. With his conservative ally, Francisco de Narváez, barred from running for president because he was born abroad to foreign parents, Mr Macri looked like the right's best shot to take on Ms Fernández.

To the disappointment of his conservative backers, however, Mr Macri has always been politically cautious. In keeping with his family's business tradition, he is thought to enjoy governing far more than campaigning. Moreover, PRO, the conservative alliance he co-founded in 2005, has made few inroads outside the Buenos Aires area. And Ms Fernández's popularity has soared since Néstor Kirchner, her husband and predecessor as president, died of a heart attack last October. Rather than offering himself up as a sacrificial lamb to Ms Fernández, Mr Macri announced in May that he would run for a second term as mayor instead.

The president was in no mood to concede continued control of the capital to Mr Macri, with whom she has repeatedly sparred in office, often hindering co-operation between the federal and municipal governments. Just as in 2007, she tapped Daniel Filmus, a former education minister, to run for mayor. Mr Filmus is one of the most moderate and professionally accomplished members of Ms Fernández's entourage, making him a good fit for the capital's educated and cosmopolitan electorate. Mr Filmus hammered Mr Macri for abusing his power, noting that the head of the city's new police force, Jorge Palacios, is being prosecuted for illegal phone tapping. He also criticised the mayor for failing to reduce crime and poverty, and for delays in the expansion of the city's underground train system.

Nonetheless, Mr Macri's decision to abandon the presidential race was vindicated on July 10th, when he breezed through the first round of the mayoral election. The incumbent took 47% of the vote, just short of the absolute majority he needed to avoid a run-off. Mr Filmus took 28% and Fernando “Pino” Solanas, a left-wing filmmaker, finished third with 13%. Barring a major upset, Mr Macri now looks set to coast to victory in the second round on July 31st.

Does Mr Macri's success bode poorly for Ms Fernández's chances in October? Not necessarily. The wealthy city of Buenos Aires has long been hostile to her Peronist party (unlike its heavily populated working-class suburbs, which are the Peronists' stronghold). Ms Fernández shrugged off Mr Macri's victory over Mr Filmus in 2007 and won the presidential election easily. And because Mr Macri's father, Franco Macri, is seen by many on the left as a symbol of ill-gotten gains for his dealings with Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship, the mayor's continued presence on the national stage may help to rile up the president's supporters (even though the elder Mr Macri has in fact supported the Kirchners' government). Much to the opposition's dismay, the status quo seems just as likely to continue in the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, as it does in the mayor's offices just across Buenos Aires's central plaza.

@ Ricki Nadir
A good administartor is someone who balances his budget and spends within his means. Macri has managed to increase the city's debt from 1,800 million pesos (approx. US$ 450 million) to 4,900 million pesos (approx. 1,1 billion dollars) in three and a half years.
The US$ 475 million he raised in the international markets in 2010 came in with an eye watering 12.5% annual servicing cost, a rate well above that which private Argentine enterprises are able to obtain in the international markets. The city's increased indebtedness isn't compensated by a new police force that covers less than 25% of the city's surface or the painting of a few stripes for the cycle lanes.
A good administrator doesn't allow historic/heritage buildings to be torn down, as is still the case in Buenos Aires. Neither does he grant permits for a real estate building spree to take place without first acertaining that the basic services infrastructure is in place to absorve the expansion.
You praise his rummunig of Boca Juniors football club, where the basic business model appears to consist of periodically flogging your main assets (talented players) to Europe in order to cover your running costs. Where's the connection between running Boca and running a major city, do you expect him to flog the Teatro Colon and the Obelisco to cover the city's debts?
The sycophantic BA press that backs him covered his latest wedding like royalty, failing to mention that during his paranoic bugging spree he even contrived to bugg members of his previous inlaw's family.
Is this the type of Major Buenos Aires needs? I don't think so.

The most important thing about this election is that it showed that opinion polls (which in 9 out of 10 cases showed a much narrower gap between Macri and Filmus) are just laughable. A whiff of hope for most of us who desperately expect to change the most horrendous democratic government in history for a just lousy one in October, when the presidentials are due.

@latinaview
excuse me, what is exactly a good administrator to you? And who has a clue on economics? I'm not a particular fan of Macri, but when one compares an engineer, a succesful businessman, a man who has shown great success when managing Boca Juniors, and who in 4 years governing the city has done several visible things (I CAN see a new police force, bicisendas, and great improvements when renewing the driver's licence, e.g.) to the professional robbers that impregnate every area of the K administration, he stands out like some Lee Iacocca to me.

Mauricio Macri, a class act? Do me a favour, the man is little more than a bargain basement Berlusconi.
He hasn't got a clue about economics. When toying with the idea of running for president, he ventured the notion that he could "transform Argentina into a top ten nation within a decade". To achieve that goal the country would have to sustain a yearly growth rate of over 20% for a decade, a totally unrealistic proposition. But who needs reality when demagogic fantasy will do, eh?
The Buenos Aires city dwellers are behind the curve on this one, they still think airhead businessmen can be good administrators.

The "Federal Capital" is a sham. Buenos Aires has 13 million inhabitants. The sooner the entire metropolitan area is consolidated into a single administrative area, the better. As to Macri Jr., well, I believe around 80% of Argentines do not understand his mumbling, incoherent, elite-school drivel. His diction is simply incomprehensible, and the fact remains that he IS (anything) because he was once president of Boca Jrs. He has no party other than his Newman-school chums...

@latinaview
Macri has made mistakes like most politicians do, especially in Argentina. But he has done a lot of possitive things in the city of BA that no one else had done before. The policy to drive resources to the less well off areas in the south of the city through the tax incentives to get businesses settle in the "Technology District" in Parque Patricios or "Design & Textiles" companies in Barracas is only one example. He also put a lot of resources to face lift run down areas such as San Telmo, La Boca, Abasto, attracting more tourists, and in turn more $ to the citizens..
But above all, he is a tolerant leader, who accepts that in politics not everyone thinks the same way and he takes well the critics, and he believes in cooperation between the different parties to reach the common goals for the people, and really this is what Argentina needs the most.
The national government cannot take any criticism, and they want to destroy in every way possible anybody who does not think like them...to the extreme of punishing with fines the independent agencies which share the true and correct price inflation rates with the people..figures that they lie about all the time...
I like leaders who when elected rule for all of the people, not only for the ones who voted for them, and unfortunately that is what the K government does, they are very democratic, pluralists and generous only with some people, with the rest...they hate them...
So delighted that their puppet did not win this election, Macri is way a better choice if we want a more democratic government in power.